1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a paper cutter for a photographic processing system which processes photographic materials while collating the photographic materials on the basis of identification (ID) marks which have been recorded in advance, by codes which can be read mechanically and visually, on at least one of a photographic film for image recording and an accommodating body which accommodates the photographic film, the paper cutter cutting an elongated photographic printing paper on which images recorded on a photographic film have been printed successively and on which an index print has been printed in succession with the printed images.
2. Description of the Related Art
A photographic film is subjected to developing processing, and images are printed onto a photographic printing paper on the basis of the developed photographic film. The photographic printing paper is elongated and wound in a roll form, and the respective images are printed successively thereon.
An index print is printed in succession with the images which are printed successively (i.e., the index print is printed either in front of or after the printed images). In the index print, the images recorded on one photographic film are arranged and displayed in a matrix form on a single sheet.
The respective prints of the images and the index print which have been printed in succession are cut and separated by a paper cutter. The paper cutter also detects the existence of an unsatisfactory mark applied to the image surface of a print of an image, so as to be able to sort the satisfactory prints and the unsatisfactory prints.
In recent years, systems have been proposed in which an ID mark is applied to each photographic material (such as the photographic film, the prints, the index print and the like), and the photographic materials are verified by using these ID marks. Usually, a bar code ID mark which can easily be read by machine and an ID mark which an operator can perceive visually are both used.
In cases in which processing is to be carried out automatically, the bar codes must be read automatically, and a bar code reader must be provided at each conveying system.
Because the prints of the respective images are sorted and conveyed per photographic film, collation thereof is easy. However, index prints of a plurality of photographic films are conveyed in a state of being bundled together. Therefore, in order to ascertain in after-processes the order in which the index prints are stacked, the ID marks must be read when the index prints are cut and must be stored on a recording medium such as an LSI card or the like for information exchange with the after-processes.
In this case, the bar codes recorded on the cut index prints could be read. However, it is difficult to determine the relative positions of the bar code recording portions of the sheet-shaped index prints and the bar code reader provided at a predetermined position. Accordingly, there are cases in which the bar codes cannot be read accurately.